15 June 2022

Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs Wine-And-Chess Case Among Winners of A' Design Award


The wine-and-chess case based on the design idea of Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs owner Andrey Filatov, won a prize of A' Design Award and Competition in the Packaging Design category.
A' Design Award is a prestigious international design award headquartered in Como (Italy). Every year the jury of industry experts, academicians, journalists, and entrepreneurs evaluates thousands of submissions from all over the world, across more than 12 product categories. The A' Design Award jury is the world's largest judging panel among independent design competitions. This year 227 experts from dozens of countries judged the submissions anonymously.

The wine-and-chess case from Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs was selected from thousands of competing submissions in the Packaging Design category, to become the only winner of the A' Design Award, representing developers from Russia.  The wine-and-chess gift case from Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs was designed by Andrey Filatov, owner of the winery and President of the Russian Chess Federation. According to Mr. Filatov, the concept of the unique packaging intertwines respect for the ancient intellectual game, a passion for great wine, and great Russian art. 

The elegant wooden box with a chessboard lid, containing six bottles of the famous Saint-Emilion wine with paintings by Russian artists on the labels comes complete with a set of chess pieces made by hand to a custom design. Andrey Filatov is a fan of the art of the undefeated World Chess Champion Alexander Alekhine. The style of chess in the 1920s inspired him to create a chessboard with red and cream color fields. The case is made of premium-quality wood, valchromat and leather.

Originally created in 2014, the concept of the Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs wine-and-chess case was updated in 2021 for the World Chess Championship in Dubai at EXPO2020, where it became a special prize for players. It is the updated version that was evaluated by the jury of the A' Design Award 2022. 

One of the peculiarities of Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs wine packaging is the designer’s original intention to develop a luxury packaging solution, which would get a second life after the opening of the wine bottles. Indeed, thanks to its functionality and elegant design the wine-and-chess case can be used as a standalone design object and a practical chess set.  

This is not the first design award for Andrey Filatov and the Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs team. In 2021 the Cuvée Elena magnum bottle won the largest international design competition Red Dot Award in Essen, Germany, in the Product Design category, sub-category Beverage Packaging. 

The unique wine-and-chess case from Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs became a super-prize in several prestigious FIDE competitions, awarded notably to the 2018 Berlin Candidates Tournament winner Fabiano Caruana, USA, and the 2021 Yekaterinburg Candidates Tournament winner Ian Nepomniachtchi, Russia. In keeping with tradition, the wine-and-chess case was presented to the participants in the FIDE World Chess Championship in Dubai: the Norwegian World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen and the challenger, Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi. 




CHATEAU LA GRACE DIEU DES PRIEURS is a winery in the Bordeaux region of France. The winery produces a single wine annually. The bottles carry labels decorated with paintings by Russian artists. Each year a collection of 12 artworks plus one for the 1.5l magnum bottle is released. All artworks reproduced on the wine labels are part of the collection of the Art Russe Foundation. They are made available to Chateau La Grace Dieu des Prieurs under a collaboration agreement with the Foundation. 

A'DESIGN AWARDS & COMPETITION was founded in 2009. The aim of A' Design Award is to bring visibility to dynamic design businesses, innovative brands, creative designers by supporting them with recognition and publicity.

A' Design is not just an award, but a mark of quality and excellence in design; an award recognised worldwide, attracting the attention of design-oriented companies and the expert community. Every year several thousand submissions take part in the competition. The best ones are subsequently exhibited in Italy. 

Members of the A' Design jury do not interact with each other but vote and leave their comments through a dedicated platform. The diversity of experts, the large number of countries they represent and the different viewpoints they provide ensure the most objective voting results, which are highly valued in the design world. The large number of judges ensures that each participant is judged by numerous independent judges, thus avoiding the influence of personal tastes and prejudices to provide a more balanced view of each design. 

The winning works are exhibited in temporary exhibitions at MOOD, Milan's Museum of Design. In 2020 the competition bought a space near Villa Olmo in Como and set up Museo del Design, a museum where the winners in the various categories will be exhibited permanently.